The great childcare debate

The prospect of returning full-time to work is just a few short months away. Much as I love being a mum I have to go – for the sake of my sanity as well as my dwindling bank account.

My day used to start with international news gathering, editorial meetings, strong coffee and newsroom gossip.

Now my morning routine goes a bit like this: feed baby his morning milk and bring him into our bed. Spend the next 30 minutes being kicked and pummelled by little fists. Get up and make baby porridge. End up wearing most of porridge. Put baby in bouncer and hope he won’t notice as I sneak away to have a shower (this has a 50/50 success rate). Read baby a story that invariably involves small talking animals being lovely to each other. Ogle Mr Bloom, the sexy gardener on Cbeebies. Worry about baby watching too much TV so attempt something educational. Open another book about small talking animals being lovely to each other.

And so on.

I must be the only person wishing my work/life balance had a bit more work in it. I’m not saying it’s easy – personally I’d much rather see public figures do 12 hours of childcare as their Sport Relief Marathon – and of course it has big rewards. Sometimes though I wonder whether the baby would mind if I read him Private Eye instead of “Dear Zoo” or “Sleepy Me” but they don’t appear to publish it on wipe-clean pages and we have a bit of an ongoing dribble issue.

But when I go back to work what will I do with him? It breaks my heart to even think about it at the moment. Today he cried when I went to hang out the washing.

Well, the three options are nursery, nanny or childminder.

Those in favour of nurseries tell me they are stimulating, routined, educational and fantastic for the early development of social skills. Those against mutter about young staff (mind you I’m at an age where everybody seems young. Especially doctors) and concerns about individual care.

The childminder brigade say it’s a smaller environment and therefore more like being at home, while others warn that childminders often have their own children there too, who inevitably get most of the attention.

Nannies are one-to-one, although they require bedrooms and National Insurance Contributions. And what if the baby (and/or the husband) starts to prefer the nanny?

I honestly don’t know what to do. Any advice?

Curb your Enthusiasm

Last night I was treated to a wonderfully romantic surprise – a seafood and champagne supper in a beautifully secluded manor house restaurant in leafy north London. It also came with the unexpected comedy bonus of being sat next to a man quite clearly channeling Larry David.

Somewhere between the lobster brisque and the salmon in oyster sauce I overheard him rather triumphantly congratulating himself on his choice of soiree while his partner nibbled at the only remaining half a breadstick in their bread basket that he hadn’t scoffed yet.

Then their talk turned to family.

“… and of course we were all so devastated when grandma died,” said Mrs Larry David.

“I didn’t know you in those days,” he replied.

“You did – you came to her funeral!” she answered.

A lesser man may well have been stumped by this. It’s not every day you accidentally admit to your spouse that the time you shared their grief over the death of a close relative has utterly erased itself from your memory.

Not this guy.

“Oh!” he exclaimed. “That was your grandmother!”

Great recovery. I wonder whose funeral he thought it was at the time? As they were a Jewish couple presumably he also sat Shivah for a week steeped in prayer and nostalgia for this mysterious dead woman who had suddenly appeared in his life. You’ve got to admit, that takes guts.

I missed the next bit as our next courses arrived, giving The Husband and I the opportunity to entertain ourselves by trying to figure out where on the plate the chef had hidden a vegetable concoction exotically described on the menu as “broccoli mousse” (turned out he’d forgotten it. Maybe he was equally engrossed by the drama on the next table).

Speaking of which, North London’s answer to Larry David could potentially have saved himself when the bill arrived – but of course he didn’t.

“Okay well…. how shall we do this? You had that Bellini…”

“I didn’t bring any money,” began Mrs D. “You told me not to…”

A withering stare ensued.

“You didn’t. Bring. Any. Money,” he repeated as the realisation sank in. “No money at all?”

“You said not to,” repeated Mrs D (fair play to her). “So no, I didn’t.”

“But…. the Bellini…” he muttered before composing himself with the world’s weariest sigh, the type I generally reserve for the kind of occasion when I’ve completed a 14 hour babycare marathon only to discover we haven’t got any HobNobs in.

“It’s fine – I can cover it, just about,” he eventually concluded (like he had any choice in the matter), although he was still clearly tortured by the ghost of that solitary Bellini which had contemptuously burst his budget without even touching his lips.

“Happy Valentines’ Day,” I whispered as they left.

The woman rolled her eyes.

Herding cats

These days 99% of my social life revolves around going to entertainingly named parent/baby groups. Puddle Ducks? Check. Plaza Babies? Hell yeah. Under Ones and Tums? Bring it on. In fact if it doesn’t sound like the title of a toddler’s tantrum it’s probably not my thing. For this reason I am still trying to persuade my husband to go to Men Behaving Dadly, if only for the free bacon sandwich.

I really did think there were no limits to the places I would go in order to keep my little son away from CBeebies and the bloody Jumperoo, with its tinny theme tune that haunts my nightmares.

Today however I met my match in the form of Notelets. This group ambitiously offers “music for the under-fives” on a Wednesday morning in one of the many local church halls. My friend and I naively pictured our beloved infants happy-clapping along while we harmonised well-known nursery rhymes like a pair of 21st century Von Trapps.

The reality was somewhat different. The first thing we had to accept rather quickly is that a group of “under fives” is more like a group of 18 – 80 year olds. If in the kingdom of the blind, the man with one eye is king, then in the world of the under fives, the toddler who can scream the loudest is unquestionably leader of the pack.

At the tender age of 11 months, my friend’s son experienced the pain of unrequited love when his two year old amour failed to appreciate the affectionate ways in which he repeatedly stole her favourite pair of shoes. The lady attempting to run the session decided the way to best defuse the situation was to gather the girl up and essentially attack her with a glove puppet in the shape of a fox. It didn’t work.

Another fact about under fives that seemed to be overlooked is that while the older ones are perfectly capable of “running round the mulberry bush” and jumping in “the puddle” (a tile of blue carpet), the younger ones are left watching gormlessly from the sidelines. My son passed the time furiously trying to eat the little wooden drum he had been given to participate with. Giving a drum to a seven month old baby is a rather pointless exercise.

A major flaw to the singing side of things was that nobody – including the group leader – knew some of the songs on the sheet we were given. And although others were different words set to familiar tunes, it is surprisingly difficult to sing about fairies and woodland to the melody of “My Old Man’s a Dustman”.

One advantage of the rather chaotic surroundings was that it was all getting strangely soporific. My son was looking decidedly sleepy, a fantastic result as he’d been bouncing off the walls since 5am. Unfortunately the group leader took this very moment to bring the proceedings to a lively finish by blasting out Katrina and the Waves “Walking on Sunshine” and giving everybody brightly coloured ribbons to throw around. \

It was another two hours before he calmed down again.

Thanks, Notelets.

Mission: Impossible

If someone had said to me this morning that my mission today would be to survive for as long as possible with just one baby, one almost-out-of-battery smartphone and a car fuelled by roughly two wine glasses full of petrol I would have said forget it. I’m staying in bed. Put the kettle on, would you?

Little did I know, when I volunteered to drop my husband at the train station at 9.15am, that it would be around five hours before I was back in my house. If I had realised this I would probably have had a shower and brushed my hair. I would most definitely have bothered putting on a bra, and ditched the flip flops.

It was roughly four minutes after R’s train departed on its 120 mile trip that I realised coming out without my gigantahandbag had been a bad idea. Especially when said handbag, containing all my bank cards, cash, nappies and the only set of keys to our house in the whole of Dorset, was now deadlocked in the hallway next to the buggy thanks to my security conscious (and rightly so) other half.

I drove home at about 14 miles per hour to conserve petrol (apologies to all who got stuck on the neverending single carriageway behind me), parked the car as close to our Wifi access as I could get and started googling locksmiths. My phone helpfully informed me it had 20% battery life left.

The first locksmith lived around the corner but was on a job 20 miles away all day. The second was an hour away. He got the gig.

It was around that time I realised the baby had last eaten at 6.30am. This meant I was about seven minutes away from a major infant meltdown.

Time to channel How to be a Woman author Caitlin Moran, who claims that she once managed to get from Crouch End to Downing Street for an interview within half an hour on a Tube strike day when her cab didn’t turn up – because she’s a MUM and mums can do anything.

Resisting the urge to fall to booze, I called a friend (15% battery) and drove (slowly) over to his house to borrow 69p for a carton of formula milk. Once I got to the chemist I realised I had nothing to actually feed the baby with and no money to buy something – which meant a call to another friend (10% battery) to borrow a milk bottle.

While all this was happening the locksmith spent two hours doing battle with our locks in vain, keeping me up to date on the phone (5% battery). He was essentially on his own outside our house hacking away at the street door for most of that time. Interestingly, nobody called the police but hey, I have already told you our neighbours are a bit mad.

Ordinarily I would be proud of our little Fort Knox but today I cursed every tooth in the fucking-five-barrel-super-bastard-proof-lock on our front door. The locksmith was just about to give up when we came up with a rather genius solution. If I told you what it was I might as well list myself on pleaserobme.com so all I’ll say is that it was a similar trick somebody used recently to nick my mate’s Mini Cooper. This leaves me in the odd position of feeling strangely grateful to the criminal underworld today.

With spectacular timing, the phone died just as I walked in to the hallway, like the best expendable heroes in the action movies. The baby, who had by this point miraculously fallen asleep in the car, was put in his cot without waking up. I celebrated this almighty victory by studiously ignoring the calls of the wine rack and mashing up an avocado for the baby’s lunch. Because Caitlin was right – I am also a MUM and this is what we do. Stupid aren’t we?

“Volunteers are suckers” – why Homer Simpson may have a point

From time to time everybody starts going on about volunteering. How important and fabulous it is to give something back to the community blah blah blah.

Some government ad campaign will embarrassingly try to make it look trendy – wasn’t there once a scheme under which you could “earn” concert tickets by mowing lawns or something? (although surely the act of earning does not entirely fit in with the spirit of volunteering).

Cool or not, It’s a sentiment I heartily agree with – but unfortunately it seems I literally can’t give away what little free time I have.

Perhaps I overestimate my Volunteer Value (which I imagine is calculated in something like Nectar Points, only harder to come by). Maybe I’m not actually as useful or entertaining as I like to think I am.

But if that’s the case I should be OK because volunteers aren’t exactly popular. A friend who volunteers in a charity shop says there is undisguised resentment on the part of the organisation’s staff, who are paid, because they don’t get a discount, while the volunteers, who are unpaid, get a small concession. So they keep “the help” in the dark about various things because they are not considered important enough to need to know. Upstairs, downstairs. Same old story.

Anyway for the last few months I’ve been a regular visitor at the local Children’s Centre (a cup of tea and a free biscuit are not to be sniffed at, especially now the reality of maternity pay has started to bite). In a remarkably poignant bit of town planning,the centre sits right behind the day centre for the elderly. I suppose you start and end life in a pretty similar place, both metaphorically and, if you’re in Swanage, geographically.

I have noticed, whenever I pass the day centre, that the elderly people inside don’t ever seem to be doing much. At first I thought, optimistically, that perhaps my timing coincided with the exact moment when they were so exhausted from all the fun and frolics that went on, they were having a little sit-down, only to resume their raucous game of charades once I had passed. A bit like when your boss walks past and catches you just as you go on Facebook, even if it is for the one and only time that day.

However a quick confer with other Children’s Centre biscuit munchers confirmed my suspicions. These people really don’t seem to do very much, at any time.

Aha! I thought. I know – I’ll volunteer. Pre-baby I did some reading for the county’s Talking Newspaper, recorded in a very strange little studio inside the hospital where the baby was born (and no, I didn’t tune in between contractions). Perhaps I can go along with the Sunday paper and read Mrs Mills’ problem page to them or something, I thought.

So, I phoned up and said I wanted to help.

It was not an easy conversation.

First I spent several minutes explaining to the lady who answered that I had no catering experience and therefore didn’t really want to work in the kitchen.

After telling her more about my background there was some confusion over whether I wanted to “broadcast at them”. I was beginning to feel like Lord Haw-Haw.

Eventually I managed to explain that all I wanted to do was a bit of reading. “Well, we’re always open to new ideas” she said, as if the concept of reading aloud was as novel as turning up and offering free vajazzles.

She suggested I come along for a meeting the next day. Already, I thought, this is feeling like a lot of hard work but hey, I am going to be a VOLUNTEER. It’s worth it.

So I went. But I never even made it as far as the reception desk.

The lady I had spoken to on the phone met me at the door and told me I had to be quick as she was busy.

Talk about an elevator pitch. I had precisely the same amount of time it took for her to sign for a delivery to reiterate what I wanted to do.

“Oh no dear, we have an audio book library for that sort of thing,” was the rather succinct answer. And besides, she said, did I know I would have to go through a criminal record check and that could take months and by then I might not even be living in the area anyway?

After I left I peered through the (unwashed) windows round the side. She may well have been busy but nobody else was.

So sadly I suppose I’ll have to stick to doing what I’m paid to do. Which right now involves eating a lot of  biscuits.

Why I can never be a boomerang babe

Thanks to a piece of somewhat tenuous tabloid journalism, today we are told that “more 30-something women than ever before” are moving back in with their parents.

There are no numbers or sources in the article in support of this so-called trend but it did enable the sub editors to coin the phrase “boomerang babes” which I suppose makes it all worthwhile.

My mother has just stayed with us for two days and much as I adore her, I can now say for sure that I definitely will not be boomeranging any time soon. And this is why…

1. Rather than bringing wine or chocolates, my mum arrived at our house with a polystyrene cover for the garden tap.

2. Replacing anything is a sign of weakness. She has spent the last few weeks painstakingly tracking down curtain hooks that were last sold in Woolworths in the late 1980s rather than buy a new curtain rail and/or curtains.

3. Wherever she is, at 11pm mum will curl up on the nearest available sofa and fall asleep, waking up freezing cold and with a sore neck in the early hours of the morning. No amount of pleading, threatening or coaxing will persuade her to abandon this semi-Pavlovian ritual for a whole night’s sleep in a warm comfortable bed.

4. She doesn’t believe in communication. She has a mobile phone which is almost always switched off or in “silent” mode. My mum refuses to use the laptop I gave her at home. Her justification for this is that she “spends all day on the computer at work”. Apparently there is no difference between “using a computer” to design spreadsheets and using it to catch up with “that Dickens thing set in Mumbai”  she has already predicted she will accidentally miss at the weekend on Radio 4 (okay, some may argue she has a point there).

5. She has an uncanny knack of getting you to apologise for things. It took the Queen nearly 100 years to say sorry  to South Africans for the atrocities which occurred during the Boer War. Mum would have had that done and dusted by lunchtime. It’s quite possible that I apologised for it myself in the fruit & veg aisle of M&S this afternoon. She is that good.

6. Any form of home truth, no matter how bluntly expressed, can legitimately be said aloud as long as it is defiantly followed by the phrase “well, it’s true.”

7. Ohmygodinlotsofwayswearesoalikeithinksheismyfuture.

Crafty Christmas? Stuff that

Every single one of these baubles was purchased. In a shop.

Do you know what is really annoying me this season? TV shows featuring ‘personalities’ at home in their picturesque country piles, lavishly adorned with rustic Christmas decorations and roaring fires, chirruping away about how easy and perfectly darling it is to “make” the festivities all by oneself.

Last night we had a whole hour dedicated to the Devonshire homestead of Kirstie Allsopp, an aristocratic estate agent turned TV presenter who now seems fixated on becoming the next Nigella Lawson.

I missed most of her introduction, I was too busy being blinded by her lipstick, but the gist was that you too can transform your Wolverhampton semi-detached into the set of the Downton Abbey Christmas Special with the help of a few window stencils and a strategically placed snow globe or two. All of which you’ve made yourself, of course.

It wasn’t quite clear when you’re supposed to do this. Before or after work? Perhaps you could knock out a few gingerbread tree decorations in your lunch break, or after you’ve got home and put the kids to bed.

You don’t even need to go Christmas shopping, Kirstie trilled – your relatives will be absolutely thrilled by this easy-to-do seasonal gift of homemade soap.

Homemade soap?

Kirstie has obviously never met my family. My dad asked every year for a motorbike, my mum for ‘peace and quiet – or that perfume with the diamonds we tried on in Duty-Free’, my semi-vegan sister will happily accept anything from Planet Organic (yes, it is every bit as poncy as it sounds) and my movie-buff husband is currently trying to pretend he doesn’t really want a Harry Potter blu-ray box set. And if he does it is only because it will be a neat legacy for our six month old son.

Let’s be honest – homemade soap has never ever made it onto anybody’s wish list.

That aside, Kirstie’s soap “recipe” involves caustic soda, or sodium hydroxide, a nasty little ingredient to have around the home. “Solid sodium hydroxide or solutions of sodium hydroxide may cause chemical burns, permanent injury or scarring if it contacts unprotected human, or other animal, tissue. It may cause blindness if it contacts the eye” says Wikipedia.

That doesn’t get me in the mood to rock around the Christmas tree. And it’s not exactly an economy either. Don’t get me wrong, these days I am all about thrift. But what does a bar of soap cost? Two quid? Okay, if you really push the boat out, a fiver.

The cheapest I can find a job lot of caustic soda online for is £2.50. Personally I’d happily spend twice as much just to avoid having it quietly decomposing in the cupboard under the kitchen sink until the next time I need to unblock the drains, or dispose of a dead body.

And even if you do decide to take your life in your hands and make the damned soap, it says on the website you have to wait six weeks before you can decorate the thing. So five days before Christmas perhaps not the best time to suggest it.

Thanks anyway Kirstie.

The art of trolling

Not a troll

A few weeks ago I had first hand experience of the local grapevine in full swing.

I was sitting at home looking around in despair at our “homely” (aka a right fucking mess) abode. Trying to do housework and look after a baby at the same time is like painting the Forth bridge – and the folk who do that don’t have to deal with the Swanage Spider Situation.

Every time I turn my back, an eight-legged tenant of ours installs a new web somewhere in the house. They are everywhere. In the corners, on the floors – I even found one between the salad spoons on the kitchen window sill.

It was the final straw. I suddenly remembered that a while ago my friend Michelle had given me the phone number of her cleaning lady. Perhaps it was a hint. Anyway I gave her a quick ring and within five minutes of agreeing our terms another friend called to congratulate me on hiring said cleaner. Hugh Grant would probably have had her arrested on suspicion of phone hacking.

I don’t know how, but around here word just spreads.

It’s probably why the townsfolk make the most of an opportunity to be anonymous. It is surely no coincidence that every single New Year’s Eve the entire town takes to the streets in fancy dress. And why comments on the local community blog, Swanageview, are almost exclusively made anonymously.

Unfortunately for The Postman, the chap who runs the blog, it really brings out the worst in them. He helpfully posts community news and issues which are all promptly ripped to shreds by the anonymous masses. Swanage has nailed the art of trolling (although inevitably they would not agree).

Notice of a proposed talk about the condition ADHD resulted in a little slanging match  between Anonymous One who thought it was  “a make believe disease for naughty schoolboys” and Anonymous Two who chastised him/her by asking “what’s the name for a condition characterised by credulous acceptance of nonsense?”

Woe betide the (anonymous, of course) person who dared to ask whether a local performance by the Masai Warriors (I would love to know what the hell they made of Swanage) was suitable for the under 5s and was bluntly instructed to “do some research and make your own judgement”. The person who wrote that later defended his/her reply by saying that as the comment began “I’m not trying to be rude…”, it wasn’t. Obviously.

A while ago a discussion about local business ended in a stand-off over whether or not it is socially acceptable to sell gollies in the tourist shops (there is an abundance of them,  a result of the somewhat tenuous connection the next village has with Enid Blyton). “Next you’ll be saying we can’t black-up for the carnival” griped Anonymous. You can imagine the replies that got.

More recently a post about the Travelling community was bound to be controversial but all the Anonymi really got stuck in and ended up calling each other Nazis.

The blog owner has now had to write an entire post dedicated to asking people to play nicely and put their money where their mouths are (IE use their names).

Needless to say nobody has taken the blindest bit of notice.

“I wouldn’t be nearly as honest and open if I thought that my identity – and it follows that of my family – could be recognised” said – yes, you’ve guessed it – Anonymous. The irony is that he/she may well only be talking to him/herself for all anyone can see.

The Postman has his work cut out.

The secret of long life in Swanage… make mine a large one

Fruity smell ball, anyone?

Two years ago I wrote a feature about Swanage for work.

It was 2009, the year of the great staycation, when the recession first began to bite and holidaying in the UK officially became cool again. Even Grazia ran a piece about the art of posh camping – aka glamping. We were all at it.

For my part, I interviewed local businesses and holidaymakers, one of whom cheerfully told me he thought the high street in Swanage (IE the shops, not the actual High Street, local folk) was “nothing fabulous”.

Little did I know then that one day I’d spend endless afternoons floating around the town myself with a small baby, an absolutely enormous handbag, and Mr Abbott from Worthing’s words ringing in my ears.

Or that more often than not I would return home empty handed (excluding the inevitable baby paraphernalia) and absolutely out of my tree on caffeine, having failed to buy anything except a lake of Americanos. (J. Alfred Prufrock isn’t the only one measuring out his life with coffee spoons).

I would then think wistfully of the halcyon days when I lived and worked in central London, a comfortingly short walk (even in my most painful heels) from the retail palaces of Oxford Street and their overdraft-blowing temptations.

Even as a resident, my impression of Swanage was that it was largely pubs and cheap gift shops.

So yesterday, armed with baby, husband, enormous handbag, pen and paper (since installing IOS5 on my phone I only have about one hour of battery life) I decided to find out whether my sweeping generalisation was correct.

It turns out that I’ve done the town a bit of a disservice.

There are 179 retail outlets in the central bit of Swanage, by my reckoning (only 121 less than Oxford Street, fact fans. Although I’m fairly sure they would all fit in the food hall at Selfridges).

Astonishingly 45 of them are either pubs, tea rooms or restaurants (including three ice cream kiosks). That’s practically one in every four shops. You’re hard pressed to take the advice of Apple founder Steve Jobs and “stay hungry” in this town. Or sober, for that matter.

All this eating and drinking is doing us the world of good though. Dorset as a county is renowned for its aged population (even Swanage has eight retirement homes, according to the Elderly Accommodation Counsel)  – but despite this there are only five health-related shops (including chemists) in the town. Perhaps it’s the sea air, although I’m really rather hoping it’s the cider.

We also have 17 clothes shops (if you’re into tie-dye, sheepskin or anything waterproof, make Swanage your muse), 11 homeware/furniture stores, ten art galleries, nine beauticians/hairdressers (this includes the town’s two dedicated dog grooming parlours – why not), seven bric-a-brac/charity shops, five jewellers, three museums and one bike shop.

We have 14 recognisable High Street brands, of which five are banks and two are betting shops (M&S hasn’t made it over the ferry yet).

Only 11 outlets are empty – well below the national small town average of 12%.

Finally – and I added this up three times because I couldn’t quite believe it –  there are actually only 12 gift shops in the entire town, which, given the number of scented candles I have in the house, I appear to be funding single handedly.

Perhaps it’s time I became less of a fire hazard, channeled Jodie Marsh and switched my allegiance to the town tattooist.

Fame and light refreshments

It’s been a fortuitous weekend for the people of Swanage. First, we got a mention in Saturday’s Guardian in a feature called, I shit you not, “let’s all move to Swanage” (now adorned with comments from locals begging people not to) and then an email was circulated inviting residents to take part in a drama project in which we get to invent a character and then act it out in a FILM .

If that doesn’t put this town on the map then I don’t know what will.

I have quite a bad feeling about the film though. You know how it’s never the people you want to see naked who flock to the naturist beach? In a similar vein I imagine not many of the local professional playwrights/actors will be keen to donate their creative talents without a fee or copyright agreement – and all that appears to be on offer is light refreshments.

Also, the first workshop is on Monday afternoon so the organisers are kind of limited to whoever is knocking around at that time. It’s peak time here in Swanage. There’s the Under Ones playgroup (to which I am promised, shoot me now), steam-hauled van brake rides are on offer at the train station (no, me neither) and of course there’s always Aquafit at the town caravan site. Some of us even have jobs.

The purpose of the project, which is for some inexplicable reason called A Tale of Two Occurrences, is to “explore notions of power and service“. I have looked everywhere for a website but I can’t find one so you’ll have to take my word for it. Perhaps I’ve seen too much am dram at the Mowlem (see previous post) – and I should disclose that I am also watching Downton Abbey while I write this – but I fear the worst.

I can almost hear a klaxon heralding the freefall of cliche and unflinching political comment (don’t ever mention the phrase second home owners around here unless you are prepared for a very long night) this has the potential to unleash.

However hopefully any fracas will be tempered by the more leftfield artistes. What are the odds that at least one person decides to play their own pet? It might even tempt the BDSM community into the spotlight. There must be one – there always is. Admittedly I’ve never seen any gimp masks for sale in Viviens, Swanage’s answer to Agent Provocateur.

On second thoughts it’s going to be brilliant. I may have to cancel my plans for Monday after all.